Pentagon Threatens
toKill Independent Reporters in Iraq

Tom McGurk: Now, Kate Adie, you join us from the
BBC in London. Thank you very much for going to all this trouble on a Sunday
morning to come and join us. I suppose you are watching with a mixture of
emotions this war beginning to happen, because you are not going to be
covering it."

Kate Adie: " Oh I will be. And what
actually appalls me is the difference between twelve years ago and now. I've
seen a complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters should
be able to report as they witness."

" The Americans... and I've been talking to the Pentagon ...take the
attitude which is entirely hostile to the free spread of information."

" I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks
--that is the television signals out of... Baghdad, for example-- were
detected by any planes ...electronic media... mediums, of the military above
Baghdad... they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists ..' Who
cares! ' said.. [inaudible] .."

Tom McGurk: "...Kate ...sorry Kate ..just
to underline that. Sorry to interrupt you. Just to explain for our
listeners. Uplinks is where you have your own satellite telephone method of
distributing information."

Kate Adie: " The telephones and the
television signals."

Tom McGurk: " And they would be fired on?
"

Kate Adie: " Yes. They would be 'targeted
down,' said the officer."

Tom McGurk: " Extraordinary ! "

Kate Adie: " Shameless! "

He said: ' Well... they know this ... they've been warned.'

This is threatening freedom of information, before you even get to a war.

The second thing is there was a massive news blackout imposed.

In the last Gulf war, where I was one of the pool correspondents with the
British Army. We effectively had very, very light touch when it came to any
kind of censorship.

We were told that anything which was going to endanger troops lives which we
understood we shouldn't broadcast. But other than that, we were relatively
free.

Unlike our American colleagues, who immediately left their pool, after about
48 hours, having just had enough of it.

And this time the Americans are: a) Asking journalists who go with them,
whether they are... have feelings against the war. And therefore if you have
views that are skeptical, then you are not to be acceptable.

Secondly, they are intending to take control of the Americans technical
equipment ...those uplinks and satellite phones I was talking about. And
control access to the airwaves.

And then on top of everything else, there is now a blackout (which was
imposed, during the last war, at the beginning of the war), ...ordered by
one Mr. Dick Cheney, who is in charge of this.

I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting,
as the war occurs. You will get it later.